


Chiaroscuro

by tittysatan



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Trans Male Enjolras, brief misgendering, pretentious philosophical references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-20 13:43:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16138457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tittysatan/pseuds/tittysatan
Summary: "When we find our other half, we are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy that cannot be accounted for by a simple appetite for sex, but rather by a desire to be whole again, and restored to our original nature. Our greatest wish, if we could have it, would then be for Hephaestus to meld us into one another so that our souls could be at one, and share once more in a common fate."





	Chiaroscuro

_Had you seen her today_   
_You might know how it feels_   
_To be struck to the bone_   
_In a moment of breathless delight!_   
_Had you been there today_   
_You might also have known_   
_How the world may be changed_   
_In just one burst of light!_   
_And what was right seems wrong_   
_And what was wrong seems right!_   
_Red, I feel my soul on fire!_   
_Black, my world if she's not there!_   
_Red, the color of desire!_   
_Black, the color of despair!_

Grantaire was a fool. That was the conclusion he came to; he’d fallen in love with the sun, and now all he could do was burn.

It took him a long time to realize. It wasn’t until the day Marius came in swooning and sighing like the silly lovesick boy he suddenly was, and Grantaire did what any sensible person would do, which was to mock him, and the words Marius said struck him like a bullet.

He knew how it felt, oh god, did he know.

He’d been walking along the street heading from nowhere to nowhere, when a flash of gold and a strident voice had stopped him. Students crying for revolution, just the usual idealistic wannabe-martyrs, but in the middle of them… Grantaire couldn’t breathe, seeing him. He was radiant, he was blinding, and time stopped as Grantaire stood there on the edge of the little jeering crowd and let the fanfare of this Apollo’s voice break over his ears.

The sun sank, the crowd dispersed, the students rolled up their posters and their pamphlets and walked off laughing with arms around each other’s shoulders (not around his, no, he walked alone and with the stride of a king), and Grantaire followed them. They came to a bar, took a table. Grantaire sat across the room. He couldn’t look away from him, this gilded youth with eyes of fire, staring at him as though in a dream.

The angel met his eyes once, twice, stood and crossed the room to stand before him. “I saw you in the crowd,” he said, offering Grantaire a pale, slender hand and a smile like the dawn. “We are The Friends of the ABC, and I am Enjolras. Come sit with us, friend.”

Grantaire took his hand, and he was whole.

So yes, he knew all too well what Marius spoke of when he spoke of love at first sight.

Enjolras’ smile faded by the day as he realized what kind of a man Grantaire was, that he possessed none of the fire that seemed to make up Enjolras’ entire being, and yet Grantaire stayed. The thought of leaving never so much as crossed his mind. He’d endure any amount of pity and scorn and cold frustration if it meant being able to look on him, hear his voice, and yet it wasn’t until Marius’ words that Grantaire ever thought to call it love.

But that was what it was, too obvious to ignore or deny, once the words were spoken. Grantaire had never been one for Greek love (though there had been shy meetings with other boys as a child, playing at kisses, touches), and to lay hands on his idol was sacrilege, of course, but once the thought had crossed his mind, there were dreams that came even unbidden. Dreams where Enjolras smiled and touched his face and murmured his name so tenderly, where he sighed under Grantaire’s kisses and wrapped his arms around him, where that lean pale body sat astride him and Grantaire woke to sticky sheets and shame.

He had never seen Enjolras’ chest, he realized. The others would throw off their vests and loosen their shirts when it was hot or they were drunk, himself included, but Enjolras was always buttoned to the collar. The most concession he ever gave to heat was to roll up his sleeves. It was only natural, Grantaire supposed; it was impossible to imagine him in a state of relaxation. But he couldn’t help but daydream, couldn’t help but stare, carving with his mind the pale form of that marble body.

 

Grantaire awoke to quiet, slumped across a café table. His drunkenness had mostly cleared, and he was about to reach for the wine and rectify that when he realized Enjolras was staring down at him, blue eyes all cold fire, a brush of rose on his cheeks. Grantaire couldn’t look away. “Good evening, Apollo.”

“I stayed behind the rest because I need to talk to you, Grantaire,” Enjolras began, voice clipped, not moving to take a seat. Sure enough, it appeared they were the only two left in the café. “I don’t know how you found out, but I’ll thank you not to stare at me like the others stare after barmaids.”

For a moment, Grantaire thought he was still drunk. “…sorry, I… I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

Anger blossomed on Enjolras’ face (god, he was beautiful when he was angry). “I’m not a fool, Grantaire, I’m not blind, I see the way you look at me and I know what it means, so don’t try to feign ignorance! How did you find out? How did you guess?”

Grantaire could do nothing but shake his head helplessly, almost laughing from sheer confusion. “I do look at you, to be sure,” he said, unable to meet the intensity of Enjolras’ gaze as he spoke, “and I can’t deny that, well… But whatever you think I’ve ‘found out,’ I can assure you that I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”

Enjolras’ face worked as he stared down at Grantaire. “…you really don’t know,” he said, finally, looking more lost than Grantaire had ever seen him. “You don’t know, and yet you…”

“Enjolras, please, enlighten this poor lost soul,” Grantaire said, reaching up with a pleading hand and a playful smile. “Whatever secret this is, you thought I knew it already, so even if you tell me now, it will only be as bad as you thought it was before.”

Enjolras sighed, shook his head. “You are incorrigible. Can I trust you not to tell?”

“On my life.”

“You’ve broken such oaths before.”

“…on you, then,” Grantaire said, heart in his throat, lunging clumsily forward to take one of Enjolras’ hands and clasp it in both of his. “I swear by you.”

Perhaps it was only his imagination, but it seemed as though Enjolras was an instant slow in pulling his hand free. “…very well.”

Grantaire watched, not at all following, as Enjolras reached up to unbutton his vest, shrugged it off, hung it neatly over the back of a chair, untied his tie and added it to the pile, and starting at the collar, freed the buttons of his shirt. His pale, smooth throat (strangely so, causing Grantaire to frown without knowing why), shapely clavicles, and…

“Now do you see?” And from between the open sides of the shirt, bandages. “If you didn’t know that I… Why do you look at me the way you do?”

Grantaire could do nothing but stare. He’d never dreamed. But it made sense, didn’t it, a runaway in men’s clothes off to join the fight, all marble and flame so no one would ever think to guess softness could exist. He could see the curves of her body, now that the vest wasn’t there to hide them, a slim waist, rounded hips, and surely there were shapely breasts under those bandages as well, yes, and surely if she was showing him, that meant she wanted it, and even if she tried to fight, well, surely he could overpower a girl…

“ _Grantaire_ ,” Enjolras snapped, disgust writ large across his face as he pulled his shirt closed and buttoned it up once more. “Yes, _that_ is more what I expected from you.”

Grantaire couldn’t speak for shame.

“I’m a man,” Enjolras said, knotting his tie. “My body is what’s wrong, not I.”

“…did you choose your name yourself?” Grantaire asked quietly, keeping his eyes on the table. He didn’t have the right to look him in the face.

“Yes.”

“It suits you, _enjôleur_.” Captivating.

“I know.”

Enjolras did up the last button on his vest, and Grantaire risked a glance. It was him, the angel, the god, the sun itself, and it was impossible to see him as anything else, even knowing what he now knew.

“Do you love me?” Enjolras asked simply.

“I must confess it.”

“As a man?”

“I’ve never known you as anything else.”

“In the manner of Eros?”

“In the manner of Aristophanes’ tale from the _Symposium_.”

“I am whole in and of myself,” Enjolras scoffed. “I am not waiting to be completed by another, least of all you.”

“Of course not, eidolon,” Grantaire said, leaning forward over the table as he grasped for words, “but do you not think it possible that I could exist as a shadow of your completeness? Not as two even halves, but as a whole and a null?”

Enjolras’ features softened from disdain to pity. “You say I complete you.”

“Yes.”

He shook his head softly, golden curls gleaming in the candlelight as he turned away. “Go home, Grantaire. It’s late.”

The café door closed behind Enjolras, and Grantaire took up his bottle.


End file.
